


Lethe For Two

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:18:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6116221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A visit from the Angel of Oblivion sounds pretty ominous, doesn't it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lethe For Two

**Author's Note:**

> For the [come_shots](http://come-shots.dreamwidth.org/) community on DW. Theme was "Turning the tables."

It was a perfect Sunday afternoon that found Crowley navigating the streets of Soho, all the windows in the Bentley rolled down and Fauré and Messager's "Under Pressure" blasting from the speakers. It was exactly the sort of day he would have preferred to stay home for, if only to avoid the legions of motorists who hadn't quite twigged to the idea that Sunday drives were best taken in the country, far away from other drivers, some of whom might actually have a destination in mind.

The uncanny thing was that nearly _every_ day since the failed Apocalypse had been faultless, as if the forces of Nature had decided they'd more than met their quota for the month and were going to have a nice lie-down until they'd recovered. One part of Crowley--the part of him that matched his eyes--was rather enjoying the eerily perfect weather. The rest of him was wondering why all of London wasn't predicting the end of the world _now,_ even if they'd managed to forget the one a few weeks prior.

After three weeks of clear skies and balmy breezes, Crowley had given up on out-waiting the weather and had slunk downstairs, wishing at least for a heat wave to liven things up. At least then there'd be frayed tempers, a steady, low-grade irritation threaded throughout the city to make putting up with the slow crawl of traffic between his flat and the bookshop worth it[1]. But it'd been three weeks without one word from Below--or from Above, for that matter, or surely the angel would have rung to mention it--and he was tired of talking to his houseplants. They were getting so much of his attention lately, they were bound to get spoiled if he kept it up.

He was a dozen blocks or so from the bookstore when he first felt it, the tingle of angelic presence. Not Aziraphale's; that was so familiar as to be almost invisible after six thousand years in the angel's company. Nor could he say it was entirely familiar, though at the same time, he couldn't say it _wasn't._ Which was peculiar. Every angelic aura was different, and he'd long since memorized the few he came into contact with often. Aziraphale's was warm and stuffy, rather like the better sort of country cottage, the kind that's been in the family for so long you couldn't say where half of the knick-knacks came from but which always had the right sort of tea in the cupboards. This...wasn't warm at all, but not quite cold, either. It didn't have Uriel's acrid heat or Raziel's parchment-dry starkness, didn't leave an aftertaste of silver and steel on his tongue the way Michael's would have. This one...blurred, ebbed and crept like fog. He didn't even realize he'd hunched his shoulders against it, as if a clammy finger had just ran down the back of his neck, until he caught sight of a pale, slight figure drifting down the sidewalk towards him.

Coming from the direction of the bookshop.

If the man who'd just pulled in to park was surprised by his sudden, driving need to peel out and rush home to check whether he'd fed his cat, it was nothing compared to how surprised the street was to find it could accommodate a Bentley in a parking space vacated by a Vespa. Crowley ignored that, jumping out with a sick curl of dread twisting in his stomach and telling himself it was perfectly reasonable to accost strange angels in the middle of the street, even if you were a demon yourself and technically the Enemy.

"Purah!"

_Especially_ if you didn't need an introduction.

Purah stopped at the sound of his name, and though Crowley cringed inwardly, half expecting to see wings come out on the heels of a flaming sword of some stripe, the angel merely smiled, dreamy and disconnected.

"Crawly."

"That's _Crowley_."

"Is it?" Wispy brows arched, pale grey eyes peering up at him without malice but not without recognition. "Sorry, I forgot."

Crowley snarled and bit back the first five things that leapt to his tongue, though it was a struggle. His tongue might be a clever one, but he still owed it dinner, and it was keeping score. Of _course_ Purah had forgotten. He wasn't the Angel of Oblivion for nothing.

Some angels simply looked the part: Raphael, for instance, who looked too much like his paintings to not be standing for at least some of them, the vain bastard. Other angels looked their _jobs._ Purah was overwhelmingly in the latter category. Every bit of him was washed-out, ethereal but forgettable, like a wisp of smoke that'd vanish in the next stiff breeze. You could talk with him for an entire morning and five minutes later find you couldn't recall a single topic. Crowley wasn't even surprised they weren't fighting. The Angel of Forgetfulness could have left him wondering why he'd even want to in a heartbeat.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded at last, glaring down at the angel.

"Only visiting an old friend."

"Aziraphale? He's never mentioned you."

"No?" Purah didn't ask how Crowley would know, though he looked briefly wistful. "Ah, well. It was a business call anyway."

Crowley didn't think. He grabbed Purah by the arm, ignoring the sharp prickles of holiness that bit at his palm, this particular angel too fresh from Heaven to be entirely comfortable to touch. _"What did you do?"_

They were drawing stares. They were the same sort of stares he and Aziraphale tended to draw, in fact, only this time Crowley was being given the disapproving glare reserved for bad boyfriends everywhere, and one particular grandmother was eyeing him in a way that suggested she had a heavy purse and wasn't afraid to use it. Crowley didn't care and Purah didn't seem to notice, the angel's distracted smile widening as pale eyes sharpened on him at last, finally _seeing_ him and the moment they were fixed in.

"Do? Why, nothing memorable at all," Purah replied and watched him go, still smiling, as Crowley left the angel and the Bentley behind to sprint the last few blocks to the bookstore.

Throwing open the door without regard for the lock or the sign flipped firmly to 'CLOSED,' Crowley darted a harried look around the empty storefront. "Aziraphale!"

"In here, dear boy," Aziraphale called from the backroom, and Crowley absently slammed the door behind him, stalking towards the angel's voice. "Is everything all right?"

Aziraphale looked the same as always: the same mild smile, the same tilt of startled concern to his brows as he turned to greet his visitor, an open book forgotten in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. He looked like he'd just been about to sit down for a cozy read when Crowley burst in on him, and book and mug were set aside after a moment when all Crowley did was stare. Clearly Aziraphale remembered him, at least, so what precisely had Purah done?

"Crowley?"

"I just ran into Purah," he said shortly, abandoning caution for a clipped recitation of the facts. "Coming from here. Are you all right?"

Aziraphale looked startled. "Yes, of course. Is that why you tore in here like that?"

"What did he want?"

"Erm." Aziraphale opened his mouth a few times and closed it again, giving him a sheepish look tinged with discomfort. "I...really couldn't say. That is--well, _you_ know what talking with him's like--"

"What did he make you forget?"

"Crowley!" Shocked disapproval from the angel was something Crowley would usually take as a compliment, but now he found himself grinding his teeth in frustration. "He's an angel-- _I'm_ an angel! He wouldn't--"

"You do at least remember three weeks ago, don't you?"

"Do you mean the end of the world, or are you hinting that it's my turn to pay for lunch?"

"This is important!" Crowley insisted as Aziraphale favored him with a distinctly amused smile. "Just because They haven't set the hellhounds and the hayyoth on us yet, that doesn't mean They won't! It's--wait. _Tell_ me you remember the Arrangement."

Aziraphale sighed patiently. "Crowley, I remember everything. Why on earth would you think otherwise?"

Crowley rolled his eyes. Despite the sunglasses, he was certain Aziraphale read the gesture loud and clear. "Because it'd be just like Them, wouldn't it? If They can't punish us openly, there's always ways around it. And you know your lot aren't big on questioning the Divine Plan. Easy enough to just make you forget you'd ever stepped out of line, right? Problem solved."

Aziraphale looked horrified, but worse than that was the way his eyes flickered, just for an instant, the way he went very still as the idea fought to take hold.

"They wouldn't," Aziraphale breathed. Crowley had already forgotten how to.

That. That wasn't doubt _yet,_ but it could be. If he pushed just right, pressed the argument just so, and he'd _never_ been so close to getting the angel to actually flirt with Questioning, with _Falling,_ before. If they weren't both already so on-edge, it could never have happened, but now....

_You could have him,_ hissed through his head, there and gone in an instant.

There were plenty of ways he wanted to have Aziraphale, as it happened, but there was one way in particular he most emphatically did _not._

"Yeah," he heard himself say, his face cold and tight, like all the blood had rushed somewhere else. And not to the usual spot, at that. "You're probably right. I mean, it wouldn't matter if you remembered or not, would it? You'd still be stained by it. Stupid thing to worry about, I guess."

Blue eyes warmed as Aziraphale relaxed, and then the angel was beaming at him, fond and proud, like Crowley had single-handedly justified his faith in the Ineffable and handed him a kitten for good measure. Maybe _two_ kittens. "My dear--"

"What?" Crowley protested, aggrieved. "I'm agreeing with you. Don't go being insulting and make me regret it."

"Of course not." Aziraphale was still smiling. Any second now, he was going to break into a saintly glow.

Crowley simply couldn't take it anymore.

"Wait," he said desperately. "You can't have forgotten _this."_

He'd crossed the distance between them before Aziraphale could do more than look ceilingward and groan, had caught the angel's face in both hands and pressed their mouths together in a hard, hungry kiss. There was a distinct possibility that he was about to get a refresher course on divine smiting, but at the moment Aziraphale only gave a muffled squeak as Crowley took advantage of his surprise, the shocked sag of his jaw, to add the curling flick of a forked tongue to the proceedings. Aziraphale tasted marvelous, of tea and honey and angel, and though his hands smacked abruptly against Crowley's chest, it was only to fist them on the lapels of his jacket as Aziraphale swayed toward him.

When Crowley pulled back at last, Aziraphale's eyes were still open, wide but glazed. Smiting was starting to look less and less like a possibility with every second, but he wasn't sure he liked Aziraphale's blank look, like he actually had to _think_ about Crowley's question. "Well?" Crowley asked when he couldn't contain himself any longer, his hands still framing the angel's face.

Aziraphale blinked foolishly and cleared his throat, mouth quirking kindly. "My dear boy," Aziraphale murmured. "Considering that it's the first time you've done that, it'd be hard to forget."

He could lie. After the truth he'd just told, he might even have enough credit with the angel to pull it off.

He smirked instead and stepped away, hunching one shoulder as he stuffed his hands into his pockets, letting Aziraphale's slide from his collar. "Can't blame me for trying, can you?"

Aziraphale snorted, but his smile was fond. "I suppose not. But you're paying for lunch."

That sounded fair enough.

***

"Well, he had to have made you forget something," Crowley insisted, watching Aziraphale tear chunks of bread off a fresh loaf from the French place down the street. The angel cast him a long-suffering look, but Crowley ignored it, slumping deeper into his sprawl on the park bench. If he happened to have stretched his arms out across the back, and if the thumb of his left hand just happened to brush the angel's shoulder now and then, that was just coincidence, wasn't it? And it wasn't like Aziraphale was complaining. "What sort of pets do I usually keep?"

"Crowley, you don't _keep_ pets. You prefer your plants. Which," Aziraphale added sternly, "you really should be kinder to."

"What? I water them, I spritz their leaves...I even talk to them!"

"Yes. That's what I'm afraid of."

Crowley shot the angel a wounded look, but Aziraphale's eyes were twinkling, the corners of his mouth pulled firmly down to ward off a smile. Crowley felt a bit like a dog who's just chewed up the morning paper but is just slightly too charming to be scolded for it with any seriousness. He decided to ignore that for now.

"Hmph. Well, when's the first time we met?"

Aziraphale gave him a gentle look and said, "You know I can't be sure."

He knew his angel still had the guts to face the tough questions head-on, so at least it wasn't his courage he'd forgotten. Or his misplaced compassion, either. "The first time you are sure of, then."

"The Garden, of course. We _were_ our respective sides' first earthly agents, after all."

Crowley huffed and looked away. Six thousand years was a lot of history to cover, and he didn't have a clue where to begin. _Hit the high points,_ he'd thought, but that didn't narrow things down by much, not really. And angels could be insidious. Sneaky. Worming their way under your skin and into your head before you had any idea of the sort of havoc they could cause there. "Fine. What about--"

"Crowley. I'm _fine._ Really."

He sounded like he believed it anyway, warm and patient still despite the fact that Crowley had been after him about it for the last several hours, his own nagging paranoia poking him insistently whenever he was tempted to drop it. And he _was_ tempted, because he didn't want Aziraphale annoyed with him now, not when it looked he might possibly have a chance at annoying the angel into something quite different. He was nothing if not persistent. It would just really help to know whether or not Aziraphale's equanimity in the face of being wiled by a demon resulted from Purah-induced amnesia or not.

"Right," he muttered, "of course you are." He bit his lip, jogging his knee for a few moments before glancing back at the angel. "So, no blank spots that you can think of, then?"

"Crowley!"

"Or fuzzy bits, or things you feel compelled not to think about? Because--well, it just doesn't add up, does it? I mean--"

"My dear--"

"--he's not the sort of angel that just drops in for tea, is he? He has to have had a reason for showing up, and I'm just saying, in _your_ place, I'd want to know whose orders he was following, because what if--"

All at once, before he could protest, his Doomsday scenarios were silenced by the simple expedient of Aziraphale turning to him in fond exasperation and sealing his mouth with a kiss.

"Nngh?" he managed at last, and that was after Aziraphale sat back, pink-cheeked but not looking sorry at all. He'd tasted just as good as the first time, though rather more of coffee and cinnamon, and though it was clear he was still learning his way around the equipment, it was also clear he was a quick learner.

"Well, you were working yourself into a tizzy," Aziraphale defended, without heat. Actually, he looked rather pleased with himself, though the shy way he peered at Crowley from under his lashes rescued the expression from outright smugness. "Are you feeling any better now?"

"Buh."

Aziraphale beamed at him. "Yes, quite. Listen, my dear. There's no need to be concerned. My memory hasn't been altered in the slightest, though it's good of you to worry." Crowley hadn't noticed that Aziraphale's hand had fallen to his knee until the angel patted it comfortingly before rising. "Well. It's been a lovely afternoon, Crowley, but I really must be getting back to the shop. What with one thing and another, I haven't gotten a thing done this weekend. No, no," he added as Crowley automatically stood and reached for his keys, "it's such a nice day, I thought I'd walk back. Erm. You'll be all right getting home on your own?"

"Mm," he said, which might have been an answer or a delayed reaction, or both.

"Oh, good. Then I'll see you at the shop on Tuesday? Say, around seven? Because there's a delightful little Indian place we haven't tried yet, and I hear the curry is to die for."

"Hn."

"Wonderful. Seven it is."

He was gone before Crowley could recover his wits or get a last word in, strolling casually through the park and pausing only to deposit his bread wrapper in a wastebin. If the air around the angel looked a little brighter or his hair a little more classically gold, well, the sun was outdoing itself over the skies of London, so there was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Which was more than could be said for what might have possessed an angel to go around kissing demons as he pleased.

Crowley scratched at the back of his neck, adjusted his sunglasses and turned resolutely away. Right. A kiss on the lips was miles better than a slap across the face while you were panicking[2], true, but all the same, he was just going to chalk that one up as a case of 'desperate times, desperate measures.'

And make sure he looked _damned_ good when he picked Aziraphale up on Tuesday, if he did say so himself.

***

While Crowley preferred to be fashionably late to most things, he arrived at the bookshop fifteen minutes early and wasted none of them dithering behind the wheel. He was wearing his favorite suit, the one that fit him almost as sinfully as the Bentley did[3], and as he slithered out and flashed a hungry grin at the bookshop, he heard no less than five pedestrians and an inline skater collide on the sidewalk around him.

He was temptation on the hoof--in a manner of speaking--and he was bound and determined to take a bite out of a certain angel that night.

Sauntering up to the door, he tried to modulate his smirk as he let himself in, half-expecting to find Aziraphale still up to his eyebrows in dust and book catalogues. Instead the shop stood empty, everything neatly tidied away, even the cash drawer of the ancient, manual register standing open and empty, less to discourage robbers than because Aziraphale had heard that that was what one was supposed to do, and he liked to keep up appearances.

"Angel?" he called, glancing up the stairs to a living area he'd always assumed was just for show, somewhere for Aziraphale to keep his wardrobe in the absence of any need or inclination to sleep.

"Crowley? Just a moment," the angel added before Crowley could suggest he invest in a burglar alarm if his door was that used to letting people in. "I'll be right down!"

Grinning a little to himself as he anticipated Aziraphale's reaction to the suit, Crowley wandered distractedly around the shop, eyeing the shelves for anything new. 'New,' of course, was a relative term when it came to most of the angel's wares, though Aziraphale did stock a few bestsellers to bribe the tourists out of his shop with. Most of the books Adam had left when the store had been recreated had either been sold or traded to replace the angel's favorite volumes, though it was amusing to see which one's he'd kept. _Blood Dogs of the Skull Sea,_ for example, sat side-by-side with the entire first run of _The Chronicles of Narnia._

"Crowley," Aziraphale greeted him from halfway down the stairs, "you're early. Did you--oh!"

Crowley let his smile go wicked at that last exclamation, turning slowly to let Aziraphale get a good look at him. He knew startled admiration when he heard it, and he could hardly help preening a little when he had, after all, made the effort in the first place.

When he saw what stood frozen on the third step up, he was tempted to hiss an exclamation of his own.

It was still Aziraphale, that was the thing: a body that looked a little older than his, that had been indulged a little more than was strictly ideal for it, not exactly fashion model-issue but charming in its own way. Whether you happened to have a kink for prim booksellers, bumbling professors or kind-hearted librarians, Aziraphale fit the bill; the vivid blue eyes and tousled blond hair were just _perks,_ really.

Only this was Aziraphale without a scrap of tartan, in a pair of nice trousers that had clearly been purchased sometime after the 1950s; they'd been purchased sometime after the 1970s, for that matter, which was a bless--a curs--no, definitely a blessing in disguise. Nor was he wearing one of those hideous jumpers he seemed to favor, the ones with the patches on the elbows that existed solely to give one's father something to sit around smoking a pipe in over the morning paper. Someone had found the angel a shirt that exactly matched the blue of his eyes, and as soon as Crowley worked out which shopgirl it had been, he was going to set her up with a wealthy, inventive lover who'd keep her far too busy to make eyes at fashion-inept bookstore owners.

Aziraphale stared for a moment longer before recovering, smile stretching as he came down the last few steps. "Crowley. You look wonderful."

"Not bad yourself," Crowley offered. He didn't think he came off quite as casual as he'd have liked to sound, but at least he managed not to hiss, either. Aziraphale looked pleased either way, so he supposed he hadn't put his foot in it, at least. "You ready to go?"

"Whenever you are."

The restaurant was new, but there was already a crowd inside, and the smells wafting from the kitchen had his tongue promising that all debts were cancelled if the taste lived up to the scent. Though they hadn't made reservations, the best table in the house was naturally waiting for them, and their waitress had them seated, menus in hand, with the sparkling efficiency of the Ritz's staff. If the naan at Shiva's was rather better than the breadsticks at the Ritz, well, he wasn't going to hold that against anybody.

"Oh, dear," Aziraphale murmured over his menu with a smile. "It all looks good. I wonder how spicy they tend to run?"

"What? Don't care to live dangerously?" Crowley teased, nudging his sunglasses up and letting his hand drop almost naturally to the table, just to let the angel know it was there. He wouldn't want to spook Aziraphale when he--

"Don't be silly," Aziraphale tutted. "It's just that I'm fonder of some dangers than others."

And he reached across the table between them to lay his hand over Crowley's, thumb stroking slow circles over Crowley's knuckles until he forgot his menu entirely.

"Are you gentlemen ready to order?" their waitress asked, appearing out of nowhere. Though her eyes never once dropped to their linked hands, Aziraphale didn't release him and her smile remained friendly and polite. It might have been the angel's doing, but then again, this was Soho; he wouldn't be surprised if she went home and told her girlfriend about them.

"Yes, thank you," Aziraphale replied, giving over his menu with his free hand. "I'll have the chicken korma, please, and...Crowley? Do you think you'd care to share a side of samosas with me?"

"Hn."

Aziraphale smiled, briefly squeezing his hand. "Good."

"And you, sir?"

It was a good thing his tongue knew what _it_ wanted, because he was too busy staring at the angel to worry about what it was ordering for them. The angel who was holding his hand like some kind of soppy greeting-card, and never mind that Crowley had been planning something remarkably similar. That was just it; he should be the one putting the moves on the angel. He was the demon here; it sort of went with the job description. Of course, it was all fairly innocent stuff so far; once they got down to the real business of seduction, he'd naturally have to step in and take over, at least if they wanted to get anywhere with it. Left to his own devices, Aziraphale would probably be satisfied with a racy cuddle under a quilt before the fire. Which was fine as far as dessert went, he supposed--he knew how to compromise--but as for the main course--

The vindaloo when it arrived was everything his tongue had promised him and more, and Aziraphale didn't even give him an arch look for ordering the lamb. Then again, since it was anyone's guess what he'd actually _said,_ he guessed the lack of a wicked smirk on his part while ordering meant that the angel hadn't felt compelled to miracle the chef into trading the lamb for goat this time. There was even a decent wine list to choose from, no intervention--divine or otherwise--required.

He just managed to avoid choking on his first sip when Aziraphale glanced up at him with suspect innocence and asked, "You'll come back to my place for dessert, of course, won't you?"

Well, _bugger._

***

It was still early by Soho standards when they made it back to the bookshop, and it had to have been the angel's doing that the streets were emptier than usual, because Crowley had gotten them back with rather more than his usual flair and rather less than his usual attention. Mostly his thoughts were taken up with the hand resting just above his knee, the pad of Aziraphale's thumb stroking back and forth, the warmth of the angel's palm soaking into Crowley's leg. Hands white-knuckled on the wheel, Crowley had grit his teeth and dropped the pedal to the floor, and for once Aziraphale had been too busy watching _him_ to panic over a few pedestrians who should have known better anyway.

He got them parked with two wheels on the curb--the front ones--and turned to Aziraphale with some half-formed notion of pouncing him right there in the Bentley[4]. Instead he saw an empty passenger seat and the door shutting with the angel on the other side of it, Aziraphale leaning down to smile through the window. "Still up for dessert?"

"You shouldn't feed a demon straight lines," Crowley grumbled as he let himself out, eyeing Aziraphale reproachfully. "You know we don't resist temptation well."

Aziraphale smiled. "My dear, it's hardly kinder to feed them to angels."

He would have kissed the angel then and there, but Aziraphale was already moving, opening the door to the shop and leaving Crowley to trail after him. With hunger a slow curl of heat in his belly, he forced himself to take a deep breath and wrap both hands around his control. No sense in botching things by being impatient when the quarry wasn't even running. He could take this slow.

The interior of the shop was still dark when he closed the door behind himself, but he was hardly hampered by the lack of light. He figured Aziraphale would have wound up in one of two places, the backroom or the bedroom, and that he probably ought to take the choice as a hint as to how far the angel was willing to go.

Not that he didn't reserve the right to renegotiate if Aziraphale liked the trial run, but that was for later.

What he wasn't expecting was the hand that slid up the line of his spine, as if Aziraphale had been waiting just beside the door to surprise him the minute they were alone. He stiffened a little in startlement before he could stop himself, but when Aziraphale's fingers skated up his nape and buried themselves in his hair, he relaxed with a sigh, eyes closing behind his shades.

"Crowley." It was that same fond tone, the one Aziraphale used when Crowley had done something stupid but well-meaning, or saved the last bottle of his favorite vintage so they could drink it together, or got in an extra miracle around Christmastime just because Aziraphale was looking frazzled and overworked. All the same, it was a little unfamiliar, because there'd never been desire in it before, at least not so he could hear. And he had sharp hearing.

Turning, shivering pleasantly as he felt Aziraphale's hand slip out of his hair to trail along his throat, he murmured, "Yes, angel?"

He wasn't prepared to be pushed back against the wall, but he wasn't actually displeased about it, either. It was hard to be displeased with anything when there was an angel pressed all along your front, leaning in to kiss you with one hand cupping your jaw, two fingers of the other hooking under the knot of your tie. Two tugs and the tie was slithering to the floor, and Crowley would have been more than happy to follow its example, except that--except that the angel was _hard._ And he could tell because Aziraphale was pressing it against him, hips nudging against his own in short, needy strokes, enough to make him groan into Aziraphale's mouth.

"Nn...Zir--mm...wha--?"

"Hush," Aziraphale murmured, working now at the buttons of Crowley's shirt, and--shit. This wasn't like the angel at all.

"Wait," he said, gasping a little as Aziraphale started in on his neck, licking and then nibbling a little when it made Crowley twitch. "Az--oh, fuck, don't do that."

"You don't like it?" Aziraphale asked and circled his tongue in the hollow of Crowley's throat again.

"Nn...not the--point!"

"Mm."

Crowley laughed shakily, but you didn't attend bicentennial meetings alongside succubi _and_ incubi without learning a thing or two. Planting his hands on Aziraphale's shoulders, he pushed the angel back firmly and tried to catch his breath. Blue eyes watched him worriedly as the angel pinked with embarrassment, but Aziraphale would thank him for it later, he was sure.

"Crowley?"

"Hn. 'S okay. Just...I think you'd better have another look at your memories, angel, because...you're not exactly yourself right now."

Aziraphale's mortified groan told him he'd been exactly right...until the angel grumbled, "You're bringing that up again _now?"_

Clearly this was going to require delicate handling.

"Aziraphale," he began, trying to sound reasonable, or at least as if he didn't have a raging erection questioning his sanity twice as loudly as the angel was. "When the Angel of Oblivion says he's just been to see you on a business call, what do you _think_ that means?"

Startled, Aziraphale asked, "He said that?"

" _Now_ do you see why I'm worried?"

It wasn't that he wasn't used to watching Aziraphale squirm with embarrassment. It was just that seeing it at this particular moment seemed somehow more ominous than even a visit from Purah.

"Er. It wasn't...like that."

Crowley's eyes narrowed. "I thought you said you didn't remember what he wanted."

"No, I said I couldn't _say!_ You drew your own conclusions," Aziraphale informed him primly.

"So what _did_ he want if he wasn't here to brainwash you?"

"He doesn't _brainwash_ people. Exactly. And...actually, he was here to remind me of something."

"Like _what?"_

Aziraphale opened his mouth and closed it again, but this time it looked more like he was searching for the right words rather than trying desperately to find a way to dodge saying anything at all. "Crowley...I am an angel, you know."

He snorted. "Yeah, I think I might have noticed that at some point...."

"And you're a demon, my dear." He didn't say it like an insult or like he was about to call the whole thing off, and that alone kept Crowley from walking away, gentled his hands on Aziraphale's shoulders. "Love, you know, can't be a sin. It isn't made to be. It's the expression of it that can get a little...tricky."

"You mean lust."

"When it's only lust, yes. It doesn't matter so much when it's two humans, but...well, an angel couldn't help but be stained by it if there wasn't love as well."

"And that's what Purah came to remind you?"

Aziraphale nodded, but he still looked uncertain, embarrassed. "And to offer...well, he thought he was being kind, but...if I wasn't _sure_ of you, he could...."

Crowley's hands tightened again. "Could _what?"_

"Er...make me...forget that I...?"

It wasn't until the lenses of his sunglasses began to char from the inside that he realized his eyes were probably glowing a bit more than was good for anyone.

Through gritted teeth, he growled, "I'm going to _pluck_ that little--"

"Crowley."

Aziraphale didn't sound angry. He didn't even sound disapproving. Reaching up to slide the shades from Crowley's face, Aziraphale gave him a sweet, contented smile that stopped him in his tracks.

"Uh?"

"Don't be an idiot," Aziraphale told him calmly. "Of course I'm sure of you."

He was a little more prepared this time when Aziraphale leaned in to kiss him, with the sort of single-mindedness he'd taken for hunger before but which tasted rather more like joy now that he was paying attention. It was the angel with every worry left behind, secure that what he wanted had no consequences worth mentioning, determined to enjoy everything on offer without a flicker of guilt.

"Aziraphale," he moaned as unexpectedly graceful hands made short work of his belt. "Wait...let me--"

"Later," Aziraphale breathed against his neck, hands sliding down his hips and pushing everything off at once to pool around his ankles. "Later, I promise."

Though the lights inside the shop were off, the large, dusty windows let in enough of the streetlamps' glare that anyone passing by could have stared, wide-eyed, along with Crowley as Aziraphale dropped to his knees, hands sliding back up to anchor at Crowley's hips. If anyone had stopped to look, they might have been just as surprised to see a delighted smile cross the angel's face over the evidence of just how tempted Crowley was. Crowley even noted, dimly, the crisp clatter of heels on the sidewalk outside, watched the outlines of casual strollers throw long, moving shadows across the rectangles of blurry light from the windows. But no one looked, and only he saw as Aziraphale gave a tentative lick to the head of his prick before taking him completely inside.

"Oh, f--" he managed before breath failed him entirely, his head snapping up to thump against the wall as his hands, shaky and careful, settled restlessly in Aziraphale's hair. There was nothing practiced about the stroke of the angel's tongue, the slow descent of his mouth around Crowley's shaft, only enough curiosity and enthusiasm to make an old whore blush and a new one take notes. When he pulled back enough to flick his tongue experimentally over Crowley's slit, his pleased-sounding hum made Crowley buck and hiss, and the hand that slid down to cradle his balls had him shuddering, biting his lip hard to keep from coming on the spot. "Hn. Angel. That's...oh, that's good."

"Mm?"

Crowley laughed breathlessly. "Really _very_ good, and...unless you want me to come right now, you--"

Apparently the angel did, if the way his eyes brightened with keen excitement, and his tongue managed a curl and cling that was almost serpentine, and his fingers gave an encouragingly _filthy_ little squeeze--

"Azir--hnn-- _fuck!"_

\--was any indication.

"Really, my dear," Aziraphale murmured when he pulled away at last, the tip of his tongue darting out unselfconsciously to lap at the corner of his mouth. If he'd really meant to scold Crowley for his language, he wouldn't have sounded quite so lazily content, so Crowley only laughed, petting the angel's hair while he convinced his legs they were doing too good a job of holding him up to quit on him now.

"Mm. Remind me to let you have your way with me more often," he purred, waiting for the blushes and stammers sure to follow.

The blushes he got. He also got a hopeful look and a shy quirk of a smile, sheepish but game.

Crowley tried to picture himself writhing under Aziraphale while the angel pinned him down and fucked him hard instead of the other way around...and found he had no particular problem with that at all.

"All right," he said. "But you're buying lunch."

"I'd love to," Aziraphale replied and reached up to pull him down.

 

1\. Crowley was firmly of the opinion that gridlock was for other people, which was understandable as he was frequently the one orchestrating it.  
2\. Unless the bestower of the Emergency Lip-Lock of Reason was, for example, a Duke of Hell. In which instance, following it up with a slap across the face was probably a case of "too little, too late."  
3\. And as he'd been known to refer to the Bentley as a "whole body glove," that was fairly sinful indeed.  
4\. Standard Fantasy #37, in other words. As familiar as it was, it didn't need to be more than half-formed. 


End file.
